Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method for controlling, monitoring and regulating processes in industrial plants, especially complex industrial processes, such as plant management in failure mode situations in a nuclear power plant, using automatic agents in the form of a digital computation program, which interact with sensors or actuators that are coupled to the process, procure process information or influence the process. The term "task" is understood below to mean the activities of the automatic agents, which are also known as robots, or of the human operators intervening in the process. The progress of execution of activities is marked by actions.
Such a method is especially significant for complex industrial processes and associated complex plants. It is of great utility, for example, in the operation of a nuclear power plant, particularly during failure mode situations, but also, for instance, during "maintenance work" (DIN 31051) in nuclear power plants, as well as during "commissioning", "service" and "repair" etc..
The invention also relates to a management system with a display device, for controlling, monitoring and regulating processes in industrial plants, especially complex industrial processes, such as plant management in failure mode situations in a nuclear power plant, using at least one digital computer having a computation program by which so-called automatic agents, that are also referred to as robots, are formed. Both at this point and below the dealings of the robots or human operators are referred to as activities and the progress of the execution of activities is marked by actions, wherein the robots interact with sensors or actuators, and the sensors or actuators are coupled to the process, procure the process information or influence the process.
In complicated industrial plants, control, monitoring and regulation are known to require highly complicated sensor and regulating technology (automatic agents or robots), which is monitored by highly skilled human experts (human operators). In particular, in such complicated tasks, precise prediction of how the status of the plant will change over time and how it will react to external interventions (activities) as a rule presents enormous difficulties. Above all, on one hand the pursuit of strategic long-term goals must be made the responsibility of human operators. On the other hand, the plant must be run largely automatically, since a human being cannot intervene in complex automatic processes precisely enough or fast enough. Moreover, the data stream in terms of the values of plant parameters is far too large to be sent, without prior automatic processing, to the human operators, who must efficiently gain insight into the current plant status and from it possibly derive and initiate activities in order to suitably influence the plant status. Moreover, almost always, such activities cannot or should not be carried out directly but rather only by means of robots.